07 April 2007

That communal BJP CD - A transcript

Here are extracts from the verbatim transcript, translated by me from the Hindi original, of the VCD titled ‘Bharat ki Pukar’ released in early April 2007 by the Bharatiya Janata Party as part of its campaign material for the Uttar Pradesh elections. It is on the basis of the contents of this VCD -- which the BJP has now withdrawn -- that the Election Commission has filed an FIR against the party’s president, Rajnath Singh

I have seen the 52 minute CD in its entirety and it is pretty ‘sick-making’.

The VCD consists of a series of fictionalised scenes revolving around several dramatis personae including Masterji, a BJP campaigner, and an unnamed social worker. Apart from a few news clips, songs and extracts from real speeches by senior BJP leaders like L.K. Advani and Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the VCD is essentially a multi-scene, viciously communal soap with a simple plot line: Muslims are out to break-up India, turn it into a Pakistan and drive the Hindus out. The message to Hindus, explicitly stated by the principal protagonist, the BJP campaigner ‘Masterji’, is for Hindus to vote in the party and or end up wearing burqas and sporting beards.

Among the more vicious statements:

“Hindus will produce two children and Muslims will marry five times and produce 35 dogs each and make this country into an Islamic state”

“If you don’t vote BJP, you will regret it. This country will be enslaved. First it was enslaved by the British, now it will be enslaved by the Muslims. Even earlier it was enslaved by the Muslims. That Aurangzeb earlier cut your choti (tuft of hair) and took off your sacred thread. And now these tikas on your forehead will have to go and in their place you will have to grow beards.”

“Ha ha ha! When Hindu girls get ensnared by us, they scream and shout but sadly there is no one to listen to them and we have great fun. Ha ha ha ha ha!”

“That day is not far away when we will be afraid to even call ourselves Hindu, and you will never be able to find a Sohanlal, Mohanlal, Atmaram or Radhekrishan anywhere. Wherever we look, we will only see Abbas, Naqvi, Rizvi, and Maulvi”.

Lest there be any doubt about authorship, the top fifth of the screen is taken over by a panel with the BJP’s colours and its ‘Lotus’ election symbol. What is interesting to note is that although there is no shortage of issues on which the BJP could choose to campaign against the ruling Samajwadi Party in U.P., the party's main plank is communal polarisation on the basis of scaring Hindus about Muslims.

Voiceover: Today Mother India is screaming aloud, ‘Oh my sons, save me from being broken into pieces again. I no longer have the strength to be enslaved another time. By using through terrorists, spreading fear and dividing us, Pakistan wants to break India into pieces. Hyenas hungry for political power are egging them on. They have forgotten what the consequences of this will be. Now, ordinary people of India have to think, do they want slavery again or Ram Rajya in their independent India. (Cut to image of Ram)

Masterji goes around telling people to come to a January 26 Republic Day flag hoisting meeting. At the meeting, only 4-5 people come. Masterji laments the poor showing but gives a stirring speech and shouts ‘Vande Mataram’. The camera immediately cuts to the image of a Muslim man (identified by cap on head) planting a bomb under a white ambassador.

Scene 1: In which two Muslim butchers pretend to be Hindus, buy a cow and slaughter it

[Cut to scene in idyllic village home with soothing music. Two men rest in courtyard next to tethered cow. Cut to two young men walking outside, carrying long lathis.]

Salim: Bhai Javed, the Hindu village has come.

Javed: Salim, you are right. Hurry up and take out the stuff, the tika and red thread (kalava).

[Javed opens bag and puts tika on Salim’s forehead]

Salim: Bhai, put it properly.

[They then tie the kalava on each other’s wrists while Javed looks around furtively]

Javed: Now no one will recognise us. [laughs]

[The two walk into the courtyard of the home with the cow]

Javed: Uncle, Ram Ram!

Uncle: What’s up? Where have you come from?

Javed: We want a cow. The doctor has said we should give milk to our child.So seeing your cow, we have come. Will you sell me your cow?

Uncle: We have cow’s milk. And we can sell it too.

Javed: What you say is true. But sell us this cow. Our child can drink milk and we will look after the cow.

Uncle: The sons of butchers have come around many times

[Cut to look of panic on Javed’s face, cut to kalava on wrist]

and even offered me 3,500 rupees. I told them I wouldn’t sell it for even a lakh. But if you keep it at home and look after it, you can have it.

Javed: But uncle, 3500 is too much.

Uncle: Brother, give me what you want. You are one of us.

Javed: Uncle, I can only give 3000. I’m a poor man.

Uncle: Take it, but on one condition. Don’t sell it to the butchers.

Javed: Uncle, we are not Muslims.

[He pays the money and takes the cow]

[Cut to scene of Uncle sleeping. His nephew comes in]

Nephew: Uncle, you’ve sold the cow to butchers and now you are enjoying your sleep!

Uncle: No, they were the Hindu boys. They had a tika on their forehead and kalava on their wrists. I saw it with my own eyes. It’s only after seeing that that I sold it.

Nephew: I saw the butcher’s sons on my way here. Neither did they have a tilak nor kalava. Aren’t you ashamed? You sold your cow to the butchers.

Uncle: Are you telling me the truth?

Nephew: I know those boys. They are sons of butchers.

Uncle: Oh, no this is a terrible thing that has happened. [Starts calling out for help, if anyone can find them]… We’ll find them and beat them up and bring my cow back.

[Cut to 50 second long graphic footage of a buffalo being slaughtered, including of the blood pouring out from its throat].

Text on screen: The present government is giving full support to butchers. Cruel atrocities are being committed on Gaumata.

Uncle [head in hands]: This is a terrible crime, what am I going to do?

Nephew: You can cry about this your whole life. You’ve committed a big sin by selling your cow to the butchers.

Scene 2: In which we are told it is the duty of Muslim women to increase the country’s population

Masterji stops a woman on the road.

Masterji: My child.

Woman: Yes.

Masterji: Elections are coming. Think carefully before you vote. And put your stamp only on the lotus symbol [of the BJP]. Because if peace can come to this country, then it can come only under the BJP’s rule. Congress and Samajwadi are the government of mullahs and maulvis.

Woman: Forgive me for saying so, for I am also a Muslim and I know Mulahs and Maulvis consider women their personal property.

[Cut to group women in black chador]

Muslim Woman 1: The duty of a woman is to produce children and increase the population.

Muslim Woman 2: What this sister says is right. Our leaders have issued an order. That those who produce more than 10 children will get economic assistance.

[Cut back to woman and masterji]

Woman: This religion considers us as objects to be used.

Masterji: Well said my child. If all the women become educated and wise like you, then this country’s fate will improve.

[Cut to real news clip of speech by saffron-clad woman: “Hindus will produce two children and Muslims will marry five times and produce 35 dogs each and make this country into an Islamic state”]

Scene 3: In which Hindu men are told they will all have to grow beards

Masterji [to group of shopkeepers]: Don’t let this opportunity pass by. This time if you don’t vote for BJP, disaster will strike this country. The country will be destroyed. The BJP is a party which thinks about the country. It thinks about the Hindu religion. There is no other party like it. The other parties, they are all agents of the Muslims. What else have they done other than this? Prices have gone up. I tell you, we must vote only for BJP.

Shopkeeper: Masterji, its time for me to run my shop. Here Hindus and Muslims both come. What is it to me whose government is formed? You have unfurled BJP’s flag first thing in the morning. If you’d like a cup of tea, you are welcome. Otherwise, please excuse me.

Masterji: Tea? You think I am desperate for your tea? Its because I’m concerned about this country and our religion that I’m asking you to vote for BJP. If you don’t vote BJP, you will regret it. This country will be enslaved. First it was enslaved by the British, now it will be enslaved by the Muslims. Even earlier it was enslaved by the Muslims. That Aurangzeb earlier cut your choti (tuft of hair) and took off your sacred thread. And now these tikas on your forehead will have to go and in their place you will have to grow beards. That day you will repent, Panditji. And you will be destroyed and so will this country.

Shopkeeper: He is really irritating!

Friend: Panditji, you are calling the Masterji mad but everything he said is correct. If today we don’t take care, these tilaks will go and we will all be sporting beards and caps.

Scene 4: In which Hindu women are told they will all end up wearing burqas

Masterji [to group of women complaining about price rise]: Listen, elections are coming and only by your votes can this country and the Hindu religion be saved. Otherwise we are standing at the jaws of slavery again. This time we have to make BJP victorious and vote on the Lotus symbol.

Woman 1: Well you men know best, we will vote where you say.

Woman 2: People keep coming to ask for our votes.

Woman 3: No one is bothered about prices.

Masterji: That is why I am saying, if BJP is in power, everything will be all right.

Woman 4: Masterji, why are you chewing your brains? People will vote for whoever they want.

Masterji: It is your brain that has been ruined! You will end up covered in burqas and eating paan!

Scene 5: In which a Muslim boy abducts a Hindu girl

[A social worker comes to a village looking for Aunty Chameli. Aunty is lying huddled in bed]

Social worker: Aunty, what happened?…Chameli: A Muslim boy pretended to be Hindu and lured my young daughter away. Fearing loss of face, my husband committed suicide. If I say I am going to the police, then those people threaten me

[Cut to visual of a Muslim man wearing a turban and looking threateningly]

that if you report us, we will kill your child. Now you tell me what should I do?

Social Worker: Don’t worry, now that I am here, we will take care of you, we will solve everything.

[Cut to scene of Chameli’s daughter praying in front of portrait of Krishna]

Daughter (Gita): Om Jai Jagadish Hare!…

[Man walks up and throws Krishna portrait on the floor]

Muslimman: If you perform puja in this house again, I will really fix you. Remember that.

Geeta: What is this you have done, Ram? You have thrown Bhagwanji’s picture! What is this you have done, Ram?

Muslim man: Ram? Ha ha ha! My name is not Ram, it is Shehzad Ali. And I am not a Hindu but a true Muslim! Ha Ha ha ha!

Geeta: What is this you are saying? You are lying.

Muslim man: Listen carefully to what I say because from today, I am no longer Ram and you are no longer Geeta. From today, your name is Fatima Begum. And tomorrow, you will be married to this boy, Yaamin, according to our rituals. [Cut to picture of older man laughing in evil manner]. And then you will have to live with him.

Geeta: (Crying) You are lying. This can’t be.

Muslim man (slaps Geeta): And don’t ever utter a name which is against our Islam. What is there in these pictures? (Camera pans to portrait of Krishna on floor). Where is God? This is all lies. If you want to pray, pray to that Khuda who has made the whole universe.

Geeta: (Breaks down, falls at his feet, and says with folded hands) Let me go back to my home.

Muslim man: Home? Ha ha ha! Which home? This is your home and you will have to live here. And stop this puja-wuja and start namaz. Because by tomorrow, you will have become a true Muslim. Yaamin! Come here. Take this girl away. Tomorrow you will be married to her.

Yaamin: (Grabs girl’s hand) Come on begum. I will really make you happy.

[Yaamin drags girl away, leaving her dupatta behind]

Muslim man: Ha ha ha! When Hindu girls get ensnared by us, they scream and shout but sadly there is no one to listen to them and we have great fun. Ha ha ha ha ha!

Text on screen: Love in Jihad [sic], injury to Hindu religion, and forced conversion. This is the protection provide by the SP government.

[The next 15 minutes of the VCD are taken up with the social worker on a mission to meet the U.P.Chief Minister, Mulayam Singh Yadav, in Lucknow, and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in Delhi. She cannot meet them but hears a candid confession from their ‘political secretary’ that the SP and Congress are in politics only for power. She is then given a BJP CD by the chief of Aunty Chameli’s village and decides that the BJP is the only party worth supporting]

Scene 6: In which we are told how India will soon have no Sohanlals, only Naqvis

[Newspaper man brings headlines of terrorist attacks. Masterji shouts that this is what he has been warning about for years but people thought he was mad. In anger, he pushes the newspaper man’s bicycle, but then has a heart attack and dies.]

[Cut to funeral scene: Social worker, shopkeepers and all the dramatis personae we have met so far congregate around Masterji’s body]

Shopkeeper 1: He was a great man, always worried about the country and our religion. One day he came to my shop and said Ramlalji, the country will be partitioned once again because Hindus are forgetting their culture and the government is taking the side of the Muslims.…

Shopkeeper 2 : Yes, he was a true patriot. He used to consider the Samajwadi government as pro-Muslim and that is what is happening in reality.

Mourner: Do you know the Mulayam government has hired 13,000 Urdu teachers? So are ulema going to teach us from now? And they have removed all laudatory references to the Hindus from the curriculum. What will happen to Hindu culture?

Social Worker: Who knows how many more masters will be martyred because of their concern for this country! But your eyes will still not open. And now, that day is not far away when we will be afraid to even call ourselves Hindu, and you will never be able to find a Sohanlal, Mohanlal, Atmaram or Radhekrishan anywhere. Wherever we look, we will only see Abbas, Naqvi, Rizvi, and Maulvi. All schools and colleges will be shut down. What will open are madrasas from where fatwas will be issued to drive Hindus out from this country, enslave them, because we want to rule over here, we want to make India into Pakistan. Then it will be difficult for Hindu girls to ever venture outside their houses. Muslims will seize their homes. Then who will protect their honour?

Old man: No. We will never allow this to happen. In order to realise Masterji’s dreams and prevent India from becoming Pakistan, we must live and die for the nation.

whoever conceived this CD is of sick mentality. But the thing is that the launching of this CD is one thing and there are chances that the office bearers launching this CD were not quite aware of the contents. We can not say at this stage that BJP shpuld be banned. I have seen the leaders of the political parties in times of elections, they normally dont have time to count the currency notes leave aside watching 52 minute CD. It was really irresponsobleof them but cant say if they conceptualised this type of content.Further I dont think that RajNath Singh any day thought that he will go scot free after directing the contents of this CD.

I am suspicious of your tranlation. In fact I don't trust your posts when it comes to BJP or others as you are idelogically aganist them. We know you are honest about 90% of the time but you twist facts remaining 10% of the time.

In the past you twisted facts regarding the nuclear deal. You made a statement saying that BJP also wanted the same kind of deal with US even though ABV was not ready to bend the way Manmohan Singh is bending. This type of statements you make as don't want to give any credit to BJP's way of making the deal with US which was superior compared to this UPA administration.

I read in a newspaper that the CD is raising concerns about the population rise of muslims in geometric progression.But your translation does not speak about it.So,there is an iota of doubt in your postings

There are far too many bleeding heart liberals and PC leftists on this forum. but alas this ostrich like approach will not work. Wake up.look around the world and see what is happening. Islamists sre loudly proclaiming to convert the whole world to dar-ul-islam. visit some of the sites run by ex-muslims and get a sampling of the islamic horors. can anybody explain the mentality behind the muslims swearing by secularism when they are in minority and want sharia law as soon as they are in majority. Example any muslim country even seemingly liberal like malaysia.Explain why apostasy is punisable by death in islam. Why no other religon is tolerated in Saudi Arabia while they finance grand mosques all around the world. rejoice you all useful idiots while going is good for it amy not last for ever.

As usual the secular people are shocked by a Hindu rant but cannot even bring themselves to address the Islamic and Christian crap being shoveled on them by the truckloads every day. It is obvious that the people of India are good, kind people who have more than tolerated the Muslims and Christians. But that is not enough for the likes of Varadarajan! I wonder when he will convert?

Since Hindu comments are all 'lies' here's a comment from a Israeli source:

Israeli Muslim Birth Rate is Double that of Jews(February 2003)

The Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics reported that Israeli Muslims have a natural reproduction rate that is double that of the Jewish population. The figures, which also include Muslims in East Jerusalem, show that at the beginning of 2003 there were more than one million Muslims in Israel. Almost 40% of the country’s Muslims (400,000 people) live in various communities in the north, the biggest of which is the city of Nazareth, which has 40,000 Muslim residents. Jerusalem has the largest Muslim population, with over 200,000. They make up some 30% of the city’s residents and some 20% of the country’s entire Muslim population. The number of Muslim residents in Israel at the start of 2003 stands at around 1,037,000, about 15% of Israel’s population. According to forecasts, the Muslim population will rise to 1,677,000 people, or 19% of the population, by the end of 2020. Muslims make up 82% of the entire Israeli Arab population, and they will comprise 85% of the Israeli Arab population in 2020. The Muslim population’s average natural rate of increase over the past few years is double that of the Jewish population: 3.6% compared to 1.8%. This rate of increase is one of the highest in the world, even higher than in neighboring Arab countries. Israel’s Muslim population is also young: 42% of Muslims are children under the age of 15, compared with 26% of the Jewish population. The percentage of people over 65 is less than 3% of Muslims, compared with 12% of the Jewish population.Source: Yedioth Ahronoth, (February 13, 2003)

Is there anything demonstrably intentional about this Islamic demographic expansion? In an article seeking to "explode the myth" of Muslim demographic aggression, journalists Namita Bhandare, Louise Fernandes and Minu Jain themselves admit that according to official surveys, "the disapproval of family planning is highest among Muslims", while "the practice of family planning methods in 1980 was lowest amongst Muslims (only 23% of those surveyed practised it as opposed to 36% Hindus)".[1] They further admit that between 1971 and 1981, "the Hindu population was up by 24.15%, whereas the Muslim population shot up by 30.59%". Further, they give the decline in fertility levels in the same period: 20.1% decline for urban and 20.0% for rural Hindus, 18.5% for urban and 17.3% for rural Muslims. This means that the already lower fertility level of the Hindus is declining faster than that of the Muslims.

Let us hear the same indications from an official source: "The total fertility rate (TFR) is 3.4 children per woman. (...) Muslims have considerably higher fertility than any other religious group. Muslim women have a TFR of 4.4, which is 1.1 children higher than the TFR for Hindu women."[2]

The implication of these data is that the Muslim rate of growth in percentage of the Indian population will go on increasing. Instead of extrapolating across centuries, we may make a safer prognosis for the next few decades. It is safe to predict that the 2001 census will show another sharp increase in the rate at which Muslims are demographically catching up with the Hindu majority. It is then that the full effect of the birth control campaigns of the 1960s and 70s will become visible. Given the higher Hindu participation in the birth control effort of the 1960s and 70s, we must now be witnessing a cumulative effect, of a proportionately smaller number of Hindu mothers (born in that period) having in their turn each a smaller number of children than the proportionately larger number of Muslim mothers, on average.

3.2. The economic explanation

Unable to refute the Hindu Revivalist perception of a visible and increasing Muslim demographic growth, the journalists retreat to their next line of defence: they admit the fact of Muslim demographic expansion but disconnect it from Muslim identity. They offer as their explanation that it has nothing to do with Islam as such nor with any aggressive designs: it is all due to Muslim poverty, "the reason has to do with economics and not with religion".[3] This is the old Marxist cliché: reduce everything to economic factors. It is still the most common explanation for the higher Muslim growth rate: the average Indian Muslim is poorer and less educated than the average Hindu, and poverty and low education both happen to lead to a higher birth rate.

Baljit Rai, a retired police officer who was a personal witness to India's failure in containing the rising tide of illegal immigration from Bangladesh, refutes this argument by pointing to the birth rate among Kerala Muslims, who have a high level of education and a relatively high standard of living. Mani Shankar Aiyar had claimed on the basis of statewise figures for the southern states that "Muslim birth rates in all these enlightened states are very much lower than Hindu birth rates in unenlightened states like Uttar Pradesh".[4] However, Rai's closer analysis of the figures shows that the Kerala Muslims have a higher birth-rate than the national Hindu average and even than the Hindu average in poor and backward states like Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan: the population growth (+28.74% for 1981-91) in the Muslim-majority district of Malappuram (with female literacy at 75.22%, far higher than among Hindus in the Hindi belt) is more than twice as high as the average for Kerala (+13.98), and well above the Hindu national average (+23.50).[5]

A secularist journalist confirms: "In spite of this 'near total literacy' the population growth rate of Muslims who constitute one-fourth of Kerala's population is as high as 2.3 per cent per year, which is more than even the national PGR [= population growth rate] of 2.11 per annum and is almost double the PGR of Hindus in Kerala itself."[6]

The figures for Kerala exemplify a general rule: at any given level of literacy and economic status, Muslims will have a markedly higher birth rate than their Hindu counterparts, even to the extent of having a higher birth rate than Hindus in a lower educational or income bracket. A secularist journalist, Pranay Gupta, estimates that in Hyderabad, which has a large Muslim middle-class, a typical Muslim family has eight children while a Hindu family has four.[7]

3.3. The literacy factor

Ever since the propagation of birth control among the Hindu masses, rich and literate Muslims have more children than poor and illiterate Hindus -- the religious determinant overrules the economic determinant. This comes out clearly when we compare with the admittedly high growth rate for the Scheduled Castes: "The high growth rate of Muslims, due to poverty, illiteracy etc., is comparable to the growth rate of Scheduled Castes", writes Ashish Bose; but he himself gives the SC growth rate as 31% for the decade 1981-91 against the Muslim growth rate of 32.8%.[8] True, some Muslims fall in the same low-income category as the SCs; but taking into account the Muslim middle-class, some old landed gentry and a lot of guest workers in the Gulf states, the average Muslim income is considerably higher than the average SC income.[9]

Likewise, illiteracy is definitely higher among the SCs than among Muslims. And yet, the Muslim growth rate is still 1.8% higher than that of the SCs. "Even after controlling for the level of education among women, religious differentials in fertility persist. Scheduled Caste women have a higher TFR (3.9) than Scheduled Tribe women (3.6) and non-SC/ST women (3.3)"[10] -- all of them considerably less than the Muslim TFR of 4.4.

The same is true for the rural-urban differential: just like in other countries, Indian rural couples have a higher fertility (5.7 for Hindus, 6.2 for Muslims) than urban couples (4.2 for Hindus, 4.9 for Muslims), but this secular determinant of fertility is overruled by the religious determinant, for Muslims are more concentrated in the cities but have a higher over-all birth rate nonetheless.[11]

Incidentally, the source just cited, Mohan Rao, provides an example of the misplaced confidence with which secularists berate Hindu Revivalists as unreliable, mendacious etc. Though riding a very high horse in his denunciation of "communal propaganda", Rao himself makes a conspicuously counterfactual statement: "The Hindu population increased by 0.71 per cent between 1961-71 and 1971-81. The population of Muslims rose by 0.05 per cent, much less than that of Hindus. (...) the growth rates of Hindus will continue to be higher than those of Muslims."[12]

He confuses the figures for the increase in population with the actual population figures. The Hindu growth rate increased between 1971 and 1981, from 23.71% to 24.42% (a finding on which Mani Shankar Aiyar builds a similarly mistaken case against a further Hindu decrease and Muslim increase)[13], but remained far below the Muslim growth rate of 30.85% c.q. 30.90%, so that the effective Hindu percentage decreased (by O.37%). Moreover, this increase was a freak development in a long-term decrease of the Hindu growth rate due to family planning, and was easily undone by a decrease twice as big (to 22.78%) in 1991.[14]

3.4. The Muslim growth rate worldwide

The same trend as witnessed in India is conspicuous at the international level: Muslim countries are among the champions of demographic growth. The economic explanation for high and low birthrates breaks down when confronted with the figures for Muslim countries: the rich and orthodox Saudi Arabs procreate much faster than the relatively poor but more secularized Turks.

The yearbooks of the Encyclopedia Brittannica give a wealth of countrywise data, including the population's doubling‑rate, which is a more accurate indicator of effective demographic growth than the birth rate. It turns out that no Muslim country has a markedly lower growth rate than India. Indonesia, Turkey and Tunisia are at about the same level as India, which is already seen by many as a demographic disaster area itself (doubling in ca. 33 years). It is no coincidence that these are the three most secularized Muslim countries.[15] The more Islamic a country, the higher the birthrate: Iran, Jordan, Lybia, Kuwait and Eritrea double their populations in 20 years or less, up to twice as fast as India.[16]

The Arabs are the champions: "In no Arab country does the population increase at a rate lower than 2.5% per year. In practically every Arab country, more than 4 inhabitants in 10 are youngsters below 15."[17] Pakistan is Asia's fastest-growing non-Arab country, doubling its population every 24 years.[18] No country is known to have a higher birth‑rate among non‑Muslims than among Muslims, but countries where the opposite is true are numerous.[19] The starkest differential is probably found in the European countries. Thus, to use another demographic indicator, the percentage of the under-25 age group in Britain is 33 for natives, 48 for Indians (mostly Hindus) and Caribbeans, 60 for Pakistanis and 63 for Bangladeshis.[20] A similar indicator for the Subcontinent: the under-15 constitute 46.3% in Pakistan, 45.1% in Bangladesh, and 35.2% in India.[21]

In Belgium, the average native couple (Christian or secular) has 1.7 children, the immigrant Moroccan couple (Muslim) has 3.25 children, i.e. nearly twice as many.[22] About American Islam, a Pakistani observer makes an estimate for the year 2,000: "The US (...) may by then become the 14th or 15th 'largest Islamic country'. Islam, in fact, is the fastest-growing religion in the US". Though the growth is largely due to immigration, he also sees "a higher birth rate" as "a major factor".[23]

3.5. Islamic government policies

In Malaysia, where Muslims were only 50% at the time of independence, just enough to declare it an Islamic state, the Government pursues a natalist policy at least as far as the Muslim Malays are concerned (non-Muslims are mostly members of the Chinese and Tamil Hindu minorities). It is only in countries where Muslims are in an overwhelming majority and demographic competition is simply not an issue that Islamic governments and religious leaders, faced with the problems resulting from overpopulation, have made an effort to curb the birth rate.

Iran now tries to encourage a three-children-per-family norm, and prides itself on reducing the yearly increase in population to 1.75%, about half of what it was in the 1980s.[24] But this will not markedly curb population growth in absolute figures for the next few decades: "Although the rate of population growth has come down (...) the girls born in response to Khomeini's call for more Muslims will soon reach marrying age; 45.5% of the population is under 15."[25]

Given the extremely high birth rate in the generation now growing up to become the fathers and mothers of the next two decades (much more numerous than the generation presently in their twenties and thirties and trying to stick to the three-children-per-family norm), even a two-children-per-family norm would still amount to an impressive demographic growth for two more generations. With a norm of three children per family, Iran is not even pursuing a policy aimed at achieving demographic zero growth, but even if it were, it could only achieve it at a much later date, and at a much higher population level, than countries with a more stringent commitment to demographic responsibility.[26]

There is no indication that even one Muslim country will achieve a substantially lower growth rate than India's Hindu community within the next decades.

Thanks for bringing the contents of this otherwise-obscure-CD to an all India audience by taking so much pain to translate it and publishing it in your "National Newspaper". I appreciate it.

In fact, I would think many sensible people would actually nod in agreement, at least at places, instead of fuming all through while reading this transcript.

// I hope you would take similar painstaiking effort to translate and report some of the phamplets they distribute in churches and some of the excerpts of the mullahs speech on a Juma prayer meeting. //

Actually they did this in UK and a British Channel produced a 6 part documentary also on it.

To some extent the alleged depictions are true. For example, it is true that there are fundamentalist muslims who beleive that they are following the sunnah of prophet mohammed by abducting hindu women and converting them. Similarly, there are some who think that they are cleansing the land of kufr(arabic word commonly used for denoting wrong/evil/darkness/refusing god) when they convert darulharb to darulislam.

However, BJP's attempt to use these things for electoral gains is wrong.

BJP: (to his friends)I’m getting bored lets have some fun. BD (comes running in) : bhaiya those people are converting our boy.RSS: WHO, Tell we shall punish them appropriately. We are men of religion, and shall behave like one, be brave not coward and act justly punish them.

SH: ooohh yes, behave like men of religion. Like the last time. Kill the men, and rape women very good representation of my religion. Very good very good.

BJP: but BD bhaiya, who did they convert and where. BD: on the internet I was reading the blog and I found all of our boys/Girls quoting from Quran. They know more about Quran now than their own scriptures.

BJP: arre dumb bhaiya, they don’t know anything about quran, but its copy paste job from falseinformation/tospeardhatered.com heehee i have myself put some false information there to corrupt minds.

BJP: Muslims kill cow,, Revenge will be taken kill all those who eat cow.BD goes for hunt comes back with Miyan bhai, Munna bhai , Bush, Tony, Manohar and oberia.

BJP: Release Bush and Tony, they were eating STEAK AND NOT BEEF, it ok for them to eat not Miyan bhai and Munna bhai and Moreover we need to make nuke deals with them and we need their money, WE NEED TO DO BUSSINESS WITH THEM. They are our miabaap. Finish miyan bhai and munna bhai.

all those people asking for a script of the things said in churches and jumma prayers , I say they have a right and also ask for the ones in RSS shakas alrites. We r not talking of religious fanatics.U dumb people grow up,,, The BJP will the STATE representation of people and to have such a mindset is shame and scary IF ELECTED.

//We r not talking of religious fanatics.U dumb people grow up,,, The BJP will the STATE representation of people and to have such a mindset is shame and scary IF ELECTED.//

People have long grown up.

Even dumb people.

They, much to your discomfort and to your surprise, are starting to ask questions. That too to the "intellectuals" (self appointed moslty). Which the likes of you consider as dumb but never care to answer.

If BJP gets state representation, then it means the people want it. Why should you get scared ? Did you steal a cow to make "Fillet" or Kabab ? Or did you Trick an attractive hindu girl and kidnap her ?

One form of fanaticism is bound to breed another. Just trying to project Hindu's as fanatics all the time will not work to stop any fanaticism! Thats what the real intelligent people are talking about.

We are not talking to ostriches. They might as well "make like a tree and leave"

But let's see if Radha is allowed to access a computer, let alone THINK - being a second class woman - in the Islamic Republic of India.

Just as Chamberlain ignored the rise of Hitler, and appeased him, we, the Hindus, Christians and Sikhs of India, are appeasing the muslims who don't give a damn about our country. Radical Islam is a bigger danger than Hitler and Nazism ever was.

If you want to see what Muslims think of the rest of us, just take a look at any Islamic country - even the 'Land of the Pure', if you so wish.

Anyway, Radha - and the other secular women who have written comments here, this may sound horrific, but at least, as long as they don't manage to convert our country into the Islamic Republic of India, you can go out without having to genuflect in front of every man.

P.S.: I'm not a Hindu fanatic, I'm a beef-eater myself. But I see only too clearly that - behind the racist rhetoric - there is a LOT of truth in what the BJP CD says.

such comments are a reality check. to think Indians would have reached a certain level of maturity and understand the futility of this misplaced hatred is naive.we just love to hate. the comments make me realise that we are not only ignorant but vicious and dangerous people

Mr. Siddharth Varadarajan - Would you please debate Koranic scholars like Mr Robert Spencer about your views of Islam? He is available at www.jihadwatch.org.

Mr. Ali Sina (Iranian ex-Muslim) has a open public challenge with anybody who can disprove what he says about Muslims and Islam on his web site. Please go and debate him on his site at www.faithfreedom.org

has the overall percentage of muslims in India remained the same or changed since Independence?

Population explosion in India is an issue of literacy and its quite obvious that states with lowest literacy are the ones with quite a significant amount of insecurity in their religious beliefs.

Beyond that is religion really needed for goodness to prevail in a Modern civilized society? Is just being spiritual enough? Those comparing Indian Muslims to the Broader world of Muslims should think again in my humble opinion.